School Days of September: A Look at Several Classroom Items in Our Collection

With yellow school buses all over town, it is clear that school is back in session. September seemed like a perfect month for sharing several classroom items from our collection: a rubber stamp set from 1932, a play program from 1929, and a report card from 1883.

The Classroom Printer, a large wooden box filled with rubber stamps featuring such designs as letters, words, animals, people, and buildings, inspired this reflection on the schoolrooms of the past. Although our stamp set is now an antique collector’s item, in its day it was an indispensable piece of classroom technology. A brief history of the rubber stamp shows how its invention greatly enhanced everyday people’s ability to communicate through printed words and images.

 

The Rubber Stamp: A Small But Mighty Tool

It is always fun to see how far an artifact can take us, and this month our Classroom Printer rubber stamps will take us first to the Amazon jungle, the source of rubber trees. Long known by natives as a waterproof coating and an adhesive, India rubber was first used outside the Amazon during the 18^th and early 19^th centuries to make pencil erasers. In the 1820s, the first waterproof raincoats utilized this rubber for their repellant coating. However while the wearers might have remained dry, the rubber coating also made them sticky. Somehow rubber needed to be made more stable, and in 1839, Charles Goodyear accomplished this through the addition of sulfur. Later in 1851, Goodyear received a patent for vulcanized rubber, a hard substance that was resistant to temperature changes, non-adherent, and almost completely insoluble. When a mixed sheet, consisting of rubber with additives, was heated to 280-290 degrees Fahrenheit, the rubber sheet became malleable for long enough to press it into a mold before it hardened (vulcanized) (1). 

While there were several different claimants to the status of rubber stamp creator, evidence seems to point to James Orton Woodruff as its true inventor. In a store during the mid-1860s, Woodruff observed washtubs with names and item numbers printed on their sides using a kind of stamp. Noting rubber’s effectiveness at applying ink, he set out to make rubber stamp letters. Ultimately, he found that small vulcanizers used in dental offices could help him create the stamps he desired (2).  The first rubber stamps were usually packaged and sold in “marking sets” that included the characters on today’s keyboards (3).

The field of business was the first to make use of rubber stamps for creating more professional and cost-effective signage. No longer did a business owner have to handwrite, stencil, or pay for sign printing. Now, he could create his own signs and merchandise labels using a set of rubber stamps. In the 1920s, rubber stamp sets became popular for classroom use, enabling teachers to make flashcards and worksheets. During the Depression when it became harder for schools to afford textbooks, these stamp sets helped teachers create their own materials. Classroom marking sets, like our 1932 Classroom Printer, could be purchased from door-to-door salesmen (4). Now that we are in a day of photocopied worksheets, full-color textbooks, and educational video and computer resources, our rubber stamp set helps us reflect on the challenges and triumphs of teachers in the past as they worked to open up the world of learning to their students.

Special thanks to the Minnesota Center for Book Arts for their research assistance on the history and influence of rubber stamps.  

 

Glass’s Speller Review of 1929: Honoring E.C. Glass for 50 Years of Service

Lynchburg has shown herself proud of the Glass name as she honors the contributions of that family to our local community, our state, and our country. While Senator Carter Glass receives much attention for his distinguished political career, his brother’s name might come up more often in everyday conversation. Today’s E. C. Glass High School was named in honor of Edward Christian Glass (1852-1931), the second superintendent of the city’s schools who served in that post for over 50 years (5).

Our second school artifact, a booklet entitled Glass’s Speller: A Review in Sixteen Episodes, is the program from a dramatic production organized by the Lynchburg School Board and Teachers’ Club in 1929 to honor his 50 years of service as superintendent. Narrated by the “Spirit of Learning,” the review follows the development of Lynchburg’s schools and pays tribute to his character and contributions as it features dramatic and musical talent from the area schools.

At the close of the review, the “Spirit of Learning” adds E. C. Glass to “the list of the earth’s great scholars” declaring that “in the pioneer days of Virginia’s public school system, [he] blazed a trail in education which has since become a highway for the youth of our state.”

 

On the Roll of Honor: A High School Report Card

 

Finally, it is report card time. In February 1883, Frank Johnson was placed on the “Roll of Honor” with an average of 96 2/5 recorded on his report card and signed by F. Roane. Founded in 1871, Lynchburg’s public school system was just over ten years old, but it would still be another 16 years before the completion of the first Lynchburg High School on Federal Street between 9^th and 10^th Streets, which combined all of Lynchburg’s white high school classes at one facility (see image below). Built by noted architect Edward Frye, the Lynchburg News hailed it as “probably the handsomest and best equipped High School building in the South” (6).

Over the next ten years, Lynchburg grew rapidly and soon required a larger high school building. When the new building opened on Park Avenue in 1910, the original Federal Street building became the Frank Roane School, an elementary school named for young Frank Johnson’s teacher. In 1920, the Park Avenue high school took the name of E. C. Glass, and finally, in 1953, the present-day E. C. Glass High School on Memorial Avenue was dedicated.

To check out images of Lynchburg’s schools, some still in use and some only in memory, visit the Lynchburg Museum’s historic photo collection and Nancy Marion’s photo collection.

 

1. Sheila McNellis Asato,“Rubber Stamps – New Phenomena or Ancient Tradition” (June 2003): 5-6 (text of article provided by the Minnesota Center for Book Arts).
2. Asato, 7-8.
3. Asato, 8.
4. Maja Beckstrom, “Stamp of Approval: The Popularity of Rubber Stamps Among Artists, Collectors and Crafters is Marked by a New Exhibit at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, January 17, 2004 (text provided by Minnesota Center for Book Arts).
5. James M. Elson, Lynchburg, Virginia: The First Two Hundred Years, 1786-1986 (Lynchburg: Warwick House Publishers, 2004), 367-368.
6. S. Allen Chambers, Jr., Lynchburg: An Architectural History (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1981), 317.   

--Author: Brandi Marchant, Museum Guide

 

Sunken Treasure from the Revolutionary War

In 1781, five years before Lynchburg became a town along the banks of the James River, this bottle came to rest at the bottom of the York River as a kind of sunken treasure from the American Revolution. The original ledger of the Lynchburg Historical Society (predecessor of today’s Lynchburg Museum System) offers us these clues to create a kind of map for following the story of our 18^th century treasure: identified as a rum bottle taken from a British ship sunk at Yorktown, raised after 154 years by the government, and credited to the Mariner’s Museum in Newport News, VA. With these clues, we began to try to track this bottle’s course from a British vessel in the Yorktown harbor to our collection in Lynchburg.  

Cornwallis’ Doomed Fleet: The British Situation at Yorktown (1781)

Lord Cornwallis, commander of British forces in the South, had hopes of decisively crushing the rebel war effort in Virginia, a significant colony in terms of size, economics, and influence. In August 1781, Cornwallis occupied Yorktown, having his troops fortify on land while he anchored his fleet of 5 warships, approximately 50 transports and armed merchantmen, as well as numerous captured vessels and other small craft in the harbor. Marching his troops south to confront Cornwallis at Yorktown, General Washington requested aid from French Admiral de Grasse, who sailed his fleet of nearly 30 warships to the Chesapeake Bay in late August. Although Yorktown had seemed to offer strategic promise for the British, this Virginia port ultimately became a trap that would compel the greatly outmatched Cornwallis to send many of his vessels to the river bottom (1).

Throughout September and into October, Sir Henry Clinton kept assuring Cornwallis that he would receive reinforcements, but the situation at Yorktown became increasingly more desperate. Cornwallis scuttled about 12 of his ships to obstruct a French landing and employed other vessels as fire ships, trying to repel the French. On October 9, the American and French forces began their siege on Yorktown, which opened with heavy assaults on British vessels in the harbor. As the Americans and French made gains on land and sea, the British began destroying their equipment and ships rather than allow them to aid the advancing enemy. On October 19, 1781, Lord Cornwallis surrendered his forces, which constituted one third of all British troops in North America. When he surrendered, almost his entire fleet of more than 55 vessels lay sunken in the York River (2). 

Buried Treasure from the Revolution: Underwater Recovery Efforts

After the British surrender at Yorktown, the French recovered some of the sunken material. However, most of Cornwallis’ fleet remained largely untouched until the 20^th century. First, in 1934-1935, the Mariners' Museum and Colonial National Historical Park recovered many objects, including ship timber, cannon, tools, and bottles. According to our ledger, this bottle spent over 150 years in the York River before being pulled from the wreckage during this first salvage effort. See several images of the 1930s recovery effort in the Mariners' Museum Image Collection. Many years spent in the river water account for how a green bottle could acquire this marbled appearance. To see other glass bottles recovered in 1934, check out this image of 18th century bottles in the Mariners' Museum collection. This early recovery effort predated the development of modern scuba technology, and unfortunately, it did not yield precise information the location of each shipwreck and where artifacts were recovered. Nearly 40 years would pass before researchers revisited the York River to carefully document the sunken fleet and its contents (3). 

In the 1970s, renewed interest in the sunken British fleet helped the area between Yorktown and Gloucester Point to become Virginia’s first underwater historic site and to be recognized by the National Register of Historic Places. Utilizing remote-sensing investigations and bottom searches, the Yorktown Shipwreck Archaeological Project located nine shipwrecks from the Battle of Yorktown within the National Register boundaries (4). Among these vessels was the British brig Betsy, which helped transport provisions and men and served as a “floating factory” on which the British could begin to build fortifications before delivering them to land (5).

As a kind of cross between tales of Indiana Jones archaeology and of sunken treasure from a high seas adventure, the story of Cornwallis’ sunken fleet told by this small glass bottle offers us fascinating insight into America’s past and the efforts made to study and preserve it. 

 

 

1. John D. Broadwater, “Naval Battlefields as Cultural Landscapes: The Siege of Yorktown,” in The Historical Archaeology of Military Sites: Method and Topic, ed. Clarence R. Geier, Lawrence E. Babits, and Douglas D. Scott (College Station: Texas A&M, 2010), 181; Jim Eccleston, "Events Leading to the Siege of Yorktown," National Parks Service: Yorktown Battlefield (1993), http://www.nps.gov/york/historyculture/eventstoyorktown.htm (accessed 9 August 2013).
2. Broadwater, 181-2; Jim Eccleston, "Chronology of the Siege of Yorktown," National Parks Service: Yorktown Battlefield (1993), http://www.nps.gov/york/historyculture/siegetimeline.htm (accessed 9 August 2013).
3. John F. Blair, Jamestown, Williamsburg, Yorktown: The Official Guide to America’s Historic Triangle (Williamsburg: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2007), 192; Broadwater, 183; "The Mariners' Museum Opens Sea Glass: Pieces from the Collection, http://www.marinersmuseum.org/visitor-information/mariners-museum-opens-sea-glass-pieces-collection (accessed 9 August 2013).
4. Broadwater, 183.
5. Broadwater, 185.    

--Author: Brandi Marchant, Museum Guide

 

Highlights from our Crest Collecting Fan

We wanted to focus in on some of the clippings featured on our fan. There are so many interesting ones, but here are just a few . . .

Myriad of Monograms
Defined as “the combination of two or more letters in such a way that one letter forms part of another and the overall design cannot easily be separated,” a monogram was a fashionable way to creatively leave one’s mark.(1)  Popular features on stationery, personal monograms were patterned after the monograms of royals and other nobility. In fact, collectors often liked to incorporate such famous monograms into their crest collections.(2)  A 1909 Good Housekeeping article gave tips for how to craft a monogram. After you have written your initials on paper, the author urges that you let them “stand for some time exposed to the eye” and “mix together with as much warmth as possible till they seem to form a fine scheme.” Then you should “watch patiently till they appear to run together slightly,” ultimately being “pulled into various shapes or lightly molded by the hands to suit the taste of the individual.”(3) 


From the Realm of Academia

• Williams College—Williamstown, MA—Founded 1793
• Dr. Holbrook’s Military School—Sing Sing, NY—Founded in 1866—See the New York Public Library Digital Gallery for an image of Dr. Holbrook's school.
• Bishop Hopkins Hall (1888)—On the campus of Rock Point School in Burlington, VT—See a University of Vermont page for historic images of the hall.
• Miss Spence’s School—Founded 1892—New York, NY—School for Girls   
• Yale University—Founded 1701—New Haven, CT—Features the school’s shield with the inscription Lux et Veritas, meaning “Light and Truth.”
• Princeton University—Founded 1746—Princeton, NJ—Features the school’s shield with the inscription Dei sub numine viget, meaning “Under the protection of God she flourishes.” 

Fine Hotels

• Normandie-By-The-Sea—summer hotel in Seabright, NJ
• Hotel Marie Anoinette—formerly in Manhattan on Broadway & 66th St.—See the New York Public Library Digital Gallery for an image of the hotel

Selected Latin Inscriptions

• Aquila non captat muscas—“The eagle does not capture flies.”
• Promptus et Fidelis—“Ready & Faithful”
• Excelsior—“Ever Upward”—New York State Motto
• Hinc Orior—“From here I rise.”

Societies & Clubs

• Daughters of the American Revolution
• Cottage Club, a Princeton Eating Club
• Alpha Delta Phi, a literary society

1. Cresk Design. “A Brief and Selective History of Monograms.” http://cresk.nl/a-brief-and-selective-history-of-monograms. Accessed 2 July 2013.
2. Jennifer Kennard, Letterology: Letters Are Symbols Which Turn Matter Into Spirit Blog. http://letterology.blogspot.com/search/label/Monograms#uds-search-results. Accessed 1 July 2013.
3. Frederic Flagler Helmer, “Making a Monogram,” Good Housekeeping 48, no. 4 (1909), Home Economics Archive: Research, Tradition and History (HEARTH). Ithaca, NY: Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell University. http://dlxs2.library.cornell.edu. (Linked from Cresk Design, “A Brief Selective History of Monograms”) Accessed 2 July 2013.

--Author: Brandi Marchant, Museum Guide

 

 

Nineteenth-Century Clippings and the Crest Collecting Craze

Eye-catching & Mysterious Artifact

Upon discovering this mysterious piece in our collection with no note of its origin, we wondered what this eye-catching fan could be telling us about the past. At first glance, you might think that this fan is an eclectic female accessory, but we have found that it is more likely the work of a hobbyist, displaying clippings of personal memories and connections as well some that may simply have suited the collector's fancy. Research has allowed us to wipe the dust from the history of a forgotten nineteenth-century craze—crest collecting. 

Looking at our fan, we wondered how several hotels, various elite colleges, miscellaneous Latin phrases, and an assortment of monograms and other clippings related to each other and why they were assembled on this item. Seeking what clues we could gather from names and places mentioned on several clippings, we were able to place this fan in the hands of a person living in New England in the 1890s.

Living at that time, this person was in a world filled with printed material. Recent advancements in printing provided people with a new abundance of printed text and images on items such as newspapers, advertisements, cards, and stationery. From this profusion of print came the scrapbooking hobby.(1)  Having a hunch that pasting personal memories on fans must have been in vogue, we searched for more information about our “scrapbook fan,” lacking a better name at the time. After much digging, we have a European fan collector to thank for properly introducing us to our mystery artifact, an 1890s crest collecting fan.(2) 

Crest-Collecting Hobby

The hobby of crest collecting emerged in the United Kingdom in the mid-nineteenth century. In 1840 with the advent of uniform penny postage in England, folded letters sealed with wax were being replaced by letters mailed in envelopes. While wax seals had featured family crests or coat of arms, the new mailing method moved insignia to envelope flaps and stationery. These printed emblems became collector’s items with the first albums for collecting crests appearing in 1862.(3) 

Collectors primarily gathered their crests by clipping the emblems from envelopes and notepaper; however, a crest collecting industry emerged, furnishing the collector with crest sets and places to display ones collection, whether in an album or on a large fan.(4)  Becoming popular in the United States during the 1890s, American crest collecting was done on large blank fans made of cloth and lacquered wood from Japan in standard colors of white, red, and black, like ours. For more examples of crest collecting fans, check out the great historical material and images on this European fan collecting site.(5)  

1. “Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920: More About Scrapbooks.” Duke University Libraries Digital Collections. http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa/guide/scrapbooks/. Accessed 27 June 2013.
2. Special: Crest Collecting Fans. http://faechersammlung.de/monatE1.htm. Accessed 28 June 2013.
3. Edward Law, Crest Collecting: Arms, Crests & Monograms. http://homepage.tinet.ie/~lawe/. Accessed 28 June 2013.
4. Edward Law, Arms, Crest & Monograms: Sets. http://homepage.eircom.net/~lawe/SETS.htm. Accessed 28 June 2013.
5. Edward Law, Crest Collecting: Arms, Crests & Monograms. http://homepage.tinet.ie/~lawe/. Accessed 28 June 2013; Special: Crest Collecting Fans. http://faechersammlung.de/monatE1.htm. Accessed 28 June 2013.

--Author: Brandi Marchant, Museum Guide

Coming Soon . . .

Featured artifacts from the Lynchburg Museum collection will be spotlighted each month on our new blog. This venue will provide us with an opportunity to showcase some of the gems tucked away in our collection. We hope you enjoy!

--Brandi Marchant